Akshaya Patra USA awarded $100,000 for school meal program in Karnataka

From Cummings Foundation’s ‘$100K for 100’ program.

AB Wire

The Akshaya Patra Foundation USA (AP-USA) is one of 100 local nonprofits to receive grants of $100,000 each through Cummings Foundation’s “$100K for 100” program.

Akshaya Patra is the world’s largest NGO-run school meal program, and provides nutritious school meals to 1.5 million children in 11,501 schools across 10 states in India every day.

Akshaya Patra USA supports this mission by raising funds and awareness for the school meal program, according to a press release.

Representing Akshaya Patra USA, Emily Rosenbaum, CEO, and Ankita Narula, Director of Development – Northeast, will join approximately 300 other guests at aJune 9th event in Woburn, Massachusetts, to celebrate the $10 million infusion into Greater Boston’s nonprofit sector.  With the conclusion of this grant cycle, Cummings Foundation has now awarded more than $140 million to local nonprofits alone.

“This grant will provide a tremendous boost to a key kitchen building project in Mangalore, India,” noted Emily Rosenbaum, AP-USA CEO, in a statement. “The 50,000 children annually who will receive hot, nutritious meals at school daily in Mangalore for decades to come will be the living legacy for the importance of this award.  More than 30% of the malnourished children in the world live in India, and these meals in school that allow children from even the poorest families to attend school (rather than work) simultaneously reduce childhood malnutrition and pave the way for better economic opportunities for these students and their families. ”

The Cummings Grant will support the building of a new centralized kitchen in the city of Mangalore in the State of Karnataka.  Akshaya Patra’s centralized kitchens Akshaya Patra produces fresh, nutritious meals to government schools from state-of-the-art centralized kitchen facilities.  Akshaya Patra’s founders used their own knowledge of engineering to design immense mechanized kitchen facilities many of which are capable of preparing meals for 100,000 plus children every day.  Akshaya Patra’s custom chapatti machines can bake 60,000 chapattis in five hours and easy-tilt cauldrons can produce 1,200 liters of rice or sambar in just two hours.

“We admire and very much appreciate the important work that nonprofit organizations like Akshaya Patra USA are doing,” said Joel Swets, Cummings Foundation’s executive director, in a statement. “We are delighted to support their efforts.”

This year’s diverse group of grant recipients represents a wide variety of causes, including education, homelessness prevention, elder services, healthcare, and food insecurity. Most of the grants will be paid over two to five years.

Woburn-based Cummings Foundation, Inc. was established in 1986 by Joyce and Bill Cummings of Winchester. With assets exceeding $1 billion, it is one of the largest foundations in New England.